“…Cool,” said Rose.
I was still quite shocked. Colette looked at me with a sense of satisfaction. “I told you so,” she said.
Rose didn’t acknowledge Colette’s comment. “This is incredible,” she said. “Come here, follow me.” She
leapt off the couch and walked hurriedly out of the main room. We quickly followed her. She walked down the
hallway to a door at the very end. I assumed it was a closet. However, Rose removed a key from her pocket
and used it to open the door. “Just look at all of this,” she said.
She swung open the door and motioned for us to enter ahead of her. Colette and I were stunned by what we saw.
The room was the size of a bedroom, and surely that’s how it was intended to be used. But this room had been
converted into what I could only describe as a shrine to vampires. The room was painted completely black.
The carpet on the floor was black. Even the windows had been blacked out to prevent outside light from
entering. There was all kinds of posters, artwork, books, and assorted paraphernalia involving vampires. I
noticed that a lot of them carried a sexual connotation.
“This is it,” said Colette. “This is what I saw.”
“You saw this?” asked Rose. “How?”
“One of the things we can do is read thoughts,” explained Colette. “Last night I sensed you were having a bad
night. That’s how we found out about the drunks. But I was getting all these weird images that I couldn’t
piece together. Everything I saw is in this room.”
“Wait, you read my thoughts because you thought I had a bad night?” asked Rose. “That can’t be it.”
“It was a test,” said Colette. “Neither of us had done it before, so it was an attempt to see how well we
could do it.”
“I have to say I don’t like being a guinea pig,” said Rose.
“Granted,” I said. “We’re sorry for that. But can I ask you…why…all of this?”
“I’ve always had a thing for vampires,” she explained. “They’re basically my obsession. Obviously. I’ve
just always had that fantasy about being a vampire. I think that would be…just incredible. To have that kind
of power, to never die. It just sticks with me. Hey, wait a second!”
“What?” asked Colette.
“How do I know you’re really vampires?” said Rose. “All you did was claim that you drank the blood of those
two drunks and claim that you read my thoughts. How about some proof?”
Colette looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. “How’s this?” she asked. We both presented our fangs to
her. She jumped back a little at their sudden appearance. “And if that’s not enough, right now you’re
thinking that you’d like to feel them to make sure they’re not fake.”
“OK,” said Rose. “I believe you.”
“Sure you don’t want to touch them?” teased Colette. “I swear I won’t mind.”
“No, that would be rude,” said Rose.
“Very well,” said Colette. We hid our fangs again. “It’s just that easy.”
“That’s cool,” she said. “So what else can you do?”
“A lot of things,” said Colette. “We can be highly persuasive if we need to be. We can move very fast if we
need to. We don’t have a lot of weaknesses, like mirrors or garlic or sunlight or anything like that. We’re
still discovering some of the things we can do.”
“So is that why you’re here?” asked Rose. “Because you read my thoughts and got all the images of this room?”
“Yes, it is,” said Colette. “You see, we’re looking for more…recruits, you might say.”
Rose looked surprised. “You’re looking for more vampires?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Colette. “And…” she stopped and looked at me. I just nodded. “And we’d like you to join us.”
Rose’s eyes darted back and forth between Colette and me. “Um, what exactly do you mean by ‘join?’ Are you
married or something?”
“We’re not ‘married’ in the traditional sense,” I said. “It’s more a brides of Dracula kind of thing.”
“Ah, I get it,” said Rose. “You want me to be your second bride.” She didn’t sound overly joyous at her
description of the situation.
“Not second in preference or anything like that, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “It’s an equal
partnership.” I considered this statement a slight lie. Colette was definitely my equal, but I didn’t intend
to give all of the same powers to two more brides. I’d have to give them the same basic powers and abilities,
including the abilities the read thoughts since that had been mentioned. But I didn’t think the shape-
shifting abilities need be given to others.
“Rose, this would be a chance to live out your desires,” reasoned Colette. “No one else can give that to you
but us. We want you to be with us.”
Rose turned and slowly walked out of the room. We followed close behind. She returned to the main room and
sat down on the same couch she occupied previously. As Colette and I sat down we saw that she didn’t look
sure. She appeared to be contemplating what we had told her. “I just…I don’t know,” she said. “There are so
many complications.”
“We can deal with those pretty easily,” I assured her.
“You think so,” she said. “But I know there’s at least one you can’t.”
Before I could ask Rose what she meant…